Catherine-Ann McPhee- Cànan Nan Gàidheal (The Language of the Gael)
'Vagrancy had always been a concern in sixteenth century England, resulting in the passing of four anti-vagrancy bills in 1547 alone. This resulted in legislation so harsh that a person charged with vagrancy could be sentenced to two years enslavement, which could be extended to life enslavement if they tried to escape. When these bills did not seem to prevent the occurrence of beggars on the street, the Vagrancy and Poor Relief Act of 1572 was instated. This act called for a “three strikes and you are out” policy, where on a person’s third vagrancy offense they could be rightfully put to death (Woodbridge 272). This legislation was the policy for over twenty years until it was repealed in 1593 for being too strict. In 1597, the new Vagrancy Act authorized the government to banish anyone caught offending the vagrancy laws. After a 1598 statute reestablished slavery as the proper punishment for vagrancy, there were a number of years where periods of leniency and harshness of punishments alternated. It is important to note the history of these laws since many of them were never entirely repealed. However, it was in the early seventeenth century that a particular legislation finally became the common law that would rule for centuries.'
Vagrancy in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England
- In October 1539, another appearance in court for a group led by George Faw, referred to as 'Erle George callit of Egypt', led to him being in the curious position of being ordered out of Aberdeen whilst, apparently, at the same time being the recipient of a King's Writ in his support.
- In February 1540, there is recorded a writ granting protection to 'our lovit Johnnie Faa, Lord and Erle of Littil Egipt' signed by King James V. Johnnie Faa was also granted powers to administer justice upon his people 'conforme to the laws of Egypt'. They were charged to help Johnnie capture and punish a group of gypsies under the leadership of Sebastaine (or Sebastiane) Lalow and including two men of the name Bailzow. (Bailzow is believed to be Baillie, of which name people appear at Yetholm.)
- This protection was renewed, in 1553, during the minority of Mary.
- In May 1540, a precept was granted in favour of John Wanne, son and heir of the said Johnnie Fall, to hang and otherwise punish all his Egyptian subjects within the kingdom of Scotland.
- In 1541, the Lords of Council, on considering the complaints given in by Johnnie Faa and his brother, and Sebastiane Lowlaw, Egyptians, to the King each against the others, were ordered to depart the kingdom within thirty days after being charged so to do, under pain of death.
- In 1553, having renewed the writ in favour of the gipsy king, Queen Mary granted a respite to Andrew Faa, captain of the Egyptians, George Faa, Robert Faa, his sons, for the murder of Ninian Smaill within the town of Linton.
- In 1571, an Act of stringency was passed upon them and all the hangers-on which they attracted - bards, minstrels and vagabond scholars. During the next thirty-three years the penalties on the Gypsies increased, just as in England. The Court Records show how hanging, drowning and being deported were the order of the day for those convicted of being Gypsies.
- An Act passed in 1579 refers to the gypsies as 'the idle peopil calling themselves Egyptians'.
- This Act included the requirement that any person found to be a gypsy was to be nailed to a tree by the ears, and thereafter to have the said ears cut off.
- In 1603, the Privy Council ordered the entire race of gypsies to leave Scotland by a certain date, never to return on pain of death.
Gypsies in Scotland, The Gypsies - Scottish Gypsies
“It seems certain,” declares Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, “that classical historians and geographers called the whole region from India to Egypt, both countries inclusive, by the name of Ethiopia, and in consequence they regarded all the dark-skinned and black peoples who inhabited it as Ethiopians.
“Homer and Herodotus call all the peoples of the Sudan, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and Western Asia and India Ethiopians.” (Ibid., p. 2.)
“I assert that the ancient Greeks, in the same way as they classed all the northern nations with which they were familiar as Scythians, etc., so, I affirm, they designated as Ethiopia the whole of the southern countries toward the ocean.” Strabo adds that “if the moderns have confined the appellation Ethiopians to those only who dwell near Egypt, this must not be allowed to interfere with the meaning of the ancients.”
Ancient Ethiopia - Afrolehar
What did Forced Assimilation do for the Native Caribbeans, who were replaced by what you call Euroasian-negroids, but what Herodotus and Strabo would have called the Ithiopian-Gaels, but what I call the Egyptian-Gaels, or alternatively, the Gaelic-Egyptians and the Gaelic-Ashanti? I dunno Tadhg, but I'm certain that their ancestors, the Gaelic-Egyptians, still fear State institutions, as the seanfhocail says ''Hurly nan glotairean cean - The bodys-snatching Doctors have arrived''.... ''We don't believe in childcare or putting our elderly relations into nursing homes." -
Lost in translation: The mystery behind Scotland's travelling ...
Catherine-Ann McPhee, who's singing Cànan Nan Gàidheal above, is most likely a living of the 'Egyptian Andrew, George and Johnie Faa', who were the subject of the 1st anti-Egyptian Laws of the 16th century, as it is believed that the Faas intermarried with the McPhee's, and adopted the McPhee name, after they had fell out of favor at Royal Courts, as can be seen by the timeline of events between the 1530's and the 1570's. That's why I call them Gaelic-Egyptians, and why I said Herodotus would have categorized them as Gaelic-Ithiopians. I think it would have been natural for German-English and Fantes to mix, and for Gaels and Ashanti to mix in the Caribbean, and the Gaelic-Egyptians were clearly as distinct among my ancestors, as the Black Seminole were distinct among the Seminole, and the Kiowa-Apache were distinct among the Apache.
Again, I will ask you, define a Mullato?
